Everything was planned in the east in 1803, but it took until 1804 go get boats made, and for them to be taken down the Ohio river and up the Mississippi river to the planned starting point near where the Missouri flowed into the Mississippi at the small village called St. Charles.
Fur trappers – mountainmen – had provided sketchy information about the land to the west, and they said how travel up the Missouri was possible, although few had been to the distant western mountains.
So it was that, on May 21, 1804, the Corps of Discovery paddled out of St. Charles.
